Silence pervades the site of Auschwitz-Birkenau today. Sometimes the only sounds are the soft footsteps of visitors, people who come from all over the world to mourn and to learn, and the voices of their guides speaking in hushed tones into microphones trying to explain the ungraspable.

Among 34,000 people in the town of Oświęcim is just one Jew – a young Israeli named Hila Weisz-Gut. It’s an interesting choice of residence, given the most famous feature of the town is its proximity to the Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz – where at least 1.

The dwindling numbers offer a stark representation of the declining population of survivors who are still able to tell their stories.

This is a collection of photos chosen by AP photo editors.

Some of the few remaining survivors of Auschwitz will gather at the site of the Nazi death camp on Monday as the world marks the 80th anniversary of its liberation in the final months of World War II.